Sabalenka Drops Zheng, Reaches Fourth Consecutive US Open Semifinal

By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday September 3, 2024

New York—Aryna Sabalenka was in no mood for hanging around on Tuesday in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The women who was involved in the latest ever start of a match at the US Open in the third round against Ekaterina Alexandrova (12:08 A.M.) stole away from Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen in a cool 73 minutes on Tuesday night, 6-1, 6-2, to set a semifinal with 13th-seeded American Emma Navarro.

When asked how she would handle the challenge of facing an American — and the American fans — in Arthur Ashe Stadium next, she told the crowd: “Drinks on me, you guys.”

That was the playful side of Sabalenka. Zheng wishes she could have seen more of that in her third career Grand Slam quarterfinal, but the women who dispatched the rising Chinese star ast year in the quarterfinals (6-1, 6-4) and again in this year’s Australian Open final (6-3, 6-2) moved swiftly to victory.

The No.2 seed safed the only break point she faced and broke Zheng’s serve four times from eight opportunities to improve to 26-6 lifetime at the US Open.

Sabalenka, the 2023 runner up in New York, is playing like she has unfinished business in gotham city.

She forced 19 forehand errors from the No.7 seed in a smothering effort, and won 16 of 24 second serve points.

Sabelnka will face Emma Navarro for the third time on Thursday in New York – the Belarusian lost to Navarro in three sets at Indian Wells (6-3, 3-6, 6-2), but returned the favor at Roland-Garros, pushing past her in the round of 16, 6-2, 6-3.

More to follow…